


phoenix

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Study, Hope's Peak Academy, The Kamukura Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 16:05:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19406704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: "No, nobody wakes up and decides that today is the day they put their life on the line."Hinata contemplates becoming so much more.





	phoenix

It’s not the kind of thought that comes upon waking, not in that hazy dream-state, where the world is milk frosting on top of something you can’t eat, and there’s a liminal few moments where you can catch onto memories and mould them into dreams. But it doesn’t come after intense thought only, a process that would require facts and figures and research, that doesn’t have a lot to do with the recklessness of simply _wanting_ something enough to throw everything else away.

No, nobody wakes up and decides that today is the day they put their life on the line. It just happens, to certain people, once everything else has built up and is threatening to overflow - once the precipice has been assessed, reached, climbed, and there’s nothing else to do but jump, then the day comes, without warning. It creeps up in the night and smothers hope, replacing it with action, and the possibility of forever coming a little too early.

But for every final step, there is a first. A tentative breath, lightly, at the back of beyond, a promise of something made out of the uncertain dark, the very first fear of humanity remembered only because of Prometheus, and only because the options are to succumb or rise above.

Hinata wants to rise above.

Every morning, he stands at the steps of the Hope’s Peak Academy main building, sinking into the atmosphere, imagining for a moment that he’s more than just part of the background. Even though he stands out, with his different uniform and evident lack of anything unique that would allude to having talent, he has never felt more ordinary than in the brief eternity of eight in the morning. He wants to press his hands into the bricks, feel how they’re warmed by the sun, simply hold onto something that he wishes he could be a part of.

And then, like clockwork, he walks into the Reserve Course side building, where the walls are drab and grey and not at all warm, and he can, half-defeated, hold out his hand and pinpoint the moment that the dream ends.

Whispers deliver just enough information to keep him hooked. Now, standing outside Hope’s Peak isn’t enough, and he finds his way into the building - through back doors, side entrances, every which way that he can, but never through the front. He doesn’t feel as if he deserves that.

At least, not yet.

Because whispers become rumours, and rumours become hope itself, until Hinata is obsessed with the very idea of the infinite. It takes over him, bodily and completely, until his soul yearns not only for Hope’s Peak, but for infamy; to not only be accepted into the establishment, but to sink so deeply into it that he, his small, infinitesimal self, can no longer be separated from the bones and the bricks and the blood of the thing.

When he gets noticed, he’s proud of himself. Hope’s Peak Academy have _noticed_ him - or, rather, they’ve read his name on a piece of paper, and he’s been smart enough to get caught listening in on just the right conversations, in just the right places. What comes beyond this is simply a precursor to everything, to the rebirth of the world, and he’s right there in the middle of it, begging for the waves of some far-off paradise to encompass him and grind him into a pillar of salt.

It seems, with each day that passes, that he’s going to be the chosen candidate for the Kamukura Project. That’s what they’re calling it, at least, but all he knows aside from this - either through being told in secrecy, or through unorthodox spying - is that it could, potentially, make him talented. Not just a Super High School Level student, but one to outshine them all. And, truthfully, that’s not necessarily the type of glory that he initially yearned for; he only wanted acceptance, something to beat down the self-consciousness, and something to finally be proud of. But the more he hears about the project itself, the more he realises that it’ll never be enough to simply be another face that passes through Hope’s Peak.

See, he’s always been looking in as an outsider, always revering those with talent. To him, it didn’t matter whether they were, say, immensely good at video games, or someone with something as simple as luck - they were _talented,_ and he had to view them from below. But now, he understands it all. That ‘normal’ is defined by a majority, and how he must have always been so naïve to assume that there aren’t hierarchies within Hope’s Peak itself.

With the Kamukura Project looming, his goal has changed into a waking-dream, and his hands are right in the thick of it, twisting it more and more until it becomes the peak of ambition.

Perhaps it’s all a lie, one so intricate and beautiful that he can’t see that it’s based on something so inherently true. He may be convincing himself out of his initial dream, only to aim bigger, because he wants to prove something to the officials who are running the Kamukura Project; or, maybe he’s just a little scared - after all, right now, he’s still ordinary, and ordinary people get lumps in their throat and worries in their minds and they back out of things that could be revolutionary.

But not Hinata. Not anymore.

For the last time, he stands outside Hope’s Peak. It’s not morning; the project commences at midnight, he assumes to avoid press coverage and to maintain secrecy until its inevitable success. The bricks, now, are cooled by the night air, and they don’t feel as familiar, but the comfort in them is enough to steel his heart in thick resolution that this is the right thing.

It has to be, doesn’t it? The alternative is so much worse, to not only be talentless, but to have come so close to achieving the only thing he’s ever wanted, only to fall behind and back out like a coward.

And yet, maybe he is a coward. Maybe Hinata, deep down, is absolutely petrified of what he’ll lose in pursuit of gaining something worth so much more. But he won’t be a coward for any longer.

He steps inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please comment if you liked it :^)


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